My Dell Scale

There are those who think Dell Computer — an outstanding company by any measure, some of whose outstanding products I have been pleased to own — is an overvalued stock.

I’m not saying either way. (OK, I’m saying. I think it probably is. I think somehow, someday, little outfits like Compaq, IBM, Toshiba, NEC, SONY, Gateway and maybe even Intel or who knows who else may find a way to compete and, at the least, narrow Dell’s profit margins and slow its growth. I have, however, been wrong before.)

What I know for sure is that it’s fun — pointless, perhaps, but fun — to play with DELL’s market cap … to marvel at it … to find new ways of expressing the giant value Wall Street puts on it. All the more so when you consider that Michael Dell is (a) reputedly a very nice guy and (b) one of those astonishing modern-day American success stories who started the company in his dorm room.

It is for this reason that I have summoned all the subjects of my kingdom to construct on my own nascent Web site a giant “scale.” Its sole purpose (at least for now): to weigh the market cap of DELL, based on today’s prices, against a handful of not-entirely-unknown stocks you may have heard of as well. Click here to see it, and to see what it takes to tip the balance.